Tutorial: Configuring Sublime Text as Arduino IDE with Stino

Stino - Sublime Text Arduino IDETo develop my programs and web applications I mainly use two editors/IDEs. For the former I use the wonderful Visual Studio, and for the latter – Sublime Text, the editor that I cannot do without ever since I first discovered it. If you still don’t know what Sublime Text is, you should download the free unlimited demo version. I bet a few among you will switch to it from your editors!
But that’s not going to be the topic of this post. See, when I worked on my Arduino projects before, I was bound to Arduino’s standard IDE, which, in all fairness, wasn’t exactly eye-candy and needed getting used to. The good news? Recently it became possible to develop for Arduino in Sublime Text. From coding, to compiling, to uploading onto the actual Arduino. Even […]

Captain Herrmano’s Mystery Box – a Reverse Geocache

Captain Herrmano's Mystery Box
Today we’ll be talking about Captain Herrmano’s Mystery Box, a piece of hardware that I built over a year ago. But what is this box, what does it do, who was it built for and who is this Captain Herrmano anyway? This will be the topic of this article.
What is Captain Herrmano’s Mystery Box?
The box is a so-called “reverse geocaching puzzle”. The inspiration for this project was a reverse geocaching box built in 2009 by Mikael Hart. Unlike Mikael’s version of the box, it’s not enough to simply find and visit the target place. To unlock the treasure of Captain Herrmano, the player has to solve more tasks.
The special thing about this box is that it interacts with the player, and not just via text – it also has sound and light feedback, […]

How to build a clap switch using Arduino

Arduino KlatschschalterToday, there is again a small Arduino craft project. This time, following the motto: “Soon it will clap, but no applause!” Because when you’ve finished reading the article and clap your hands, then your lamps should switch on and off.
The project originated from the (presumably nerd-specific) “emergency”, in which I found myself for some time and which looked like this: You want to go into the bed at night, but firstly you must turn on the light of the bedroom to be able to find the switch of the bedside lamp. Then you switched on the bedside lamp and run to the bedroom’s door again to turn off the bedroom light. You already notice the bedroom light is really just a means to an end.
As a clever computer scientists and hobbyists, one feels as though their relentless […]

How to install Arduino drivers on Windows 8

One of my favourite “gadgets” is the Arduino (no matter if UNO, Leonardo, Mega, …), which you will surely read some articles about in the near future. But let’s get back to the title.
Unfortunately the drivers of the Arduinos are not signed for Windows 8. So, when you try to install the drivers, you will get an error that will look similar to the following message. (Click to enlarge the picture.)
arduino_treiber_unter_windows8_installieren_3
Before installation:
So that this doesn’t happen to us, we have to make sure that we will be able to install unsigned drivers on Windows 8. How to do so, you can read in this article I’ve written some days ago. If you have followed the steps of my article, you can start to install the Arduino driver in Windows 8
Step 1:
arduino_treiber_unter_windows8_installieren_1
Connect the Arduino […]

RadioduinoWRT – a do it yourself webradio

RadioduinoWRTToday I want to present you one of my larger craft projects. This time it is not just about software, but also about the associated hardware. What is it? A web radio!
I like to listen to internet radio stations, but I didn’t want to run my pc only for listening to webradios.  Connecting my phone to my stereo either wasn’t a solution, since I’d rather wear this with me, because I don’t want to run for each SMS / Whatsapp message to the music system. And because I always like to tinker, it was obvious to build a web radio as a standalone device myself.
As this article has become a bit longer, there is a brief overview of the following sections of the article, so that everyone can quickly find what he looks for.

What is the RadioduinoWRT?
Considerations before […]